I shortened this chapter because it was getting too long for YWS. So if the ending feels abrupt, that's why. Enjoy the read.
Chapter Two
Millie had been baking. The smell of cookies and bread assaulted me as soon as I stepped inside, and I inhaled greedily.
“What were you doing out there, Lily?” Millie asked me, spotting me in the kitchen doorway. “Your snack is going to get cold, silly girl.”
I hung up my bag next to Tasha’s—we got scolded at if we just left them on the floor. “Sorry,” I said, offering no explanation. Ron and Quinn were already arguing over who got the last cookie, and I sat down on a stool, watching them tower over the lonely cookie sitting in the middle of the counter. My own plate was right at my elbow, two of the cookie and a piece of banana bread. One sniff and I knew it was banana.
“You had three, you fatso,” Quinn snapped at Ron. “And two pieces of the banana bread! If anyone gets the last cookie, it should be me, moron.”
“Quinton, call Ron one more name and you can spend the night in your room,” Millie interjected, washing a plate. Tasha was at her side, drying. I could hear the sounds of The O.C. in the living room, and peered through the small square in the wall to see Joanna flopped out on the couch.
“Yeah, so what?” Ron shoved Quinn away, scowling. “I didn’t eat lunch, and you always have part of Joanna’s lunch plus yours, so technically I should have the last cookie!”
Silently, I picked up the cookie they were bickering over and stuffed it into my mouth. Ron and Quinn were so busy yelling at each other they didn’t notice. I then proceeded to eat the food on my plate, smacking my lips when I was done.
“I have to build up for football!” Quinn was saying. “So I need to eat more. Only an idiot wouldn’t see that.”
“Yeah, I think that muscles, not fat, are what that sport require.” Ron smirked. Quinn made a sound low in his throat, looking ready to jump Ron.
“Boys, I’m waiting for you two to work it out by yourselves,” Millie spoke up again. “But if you can’t, I think you know that I’m all-too willing to step in.”
Ron and Quinn glared at each other. I hopped off my stool and headed upstairs, eager to check my e-mail. Every day was the same. I was always hoping, always desperate. Maybe today will be the day Chris forgives me.
I turned the knob to my bedroom—the second on the right in the long hallway—and shut the door firmly behind me.
My room was what I liked to call “order among chaos”. It wasn’t messy, exactly, because I was a bit of a neat freak, but it did seem wild because of the walls. Every inch of the plaster was covered in poems, newspaper clippings, stories, quotes, paintings and pictures that I thought were neat. Stuff that I’d collected over the years. I even wrote some of the quotes on the wall myself, with a blue marker—with Millie’s permission, of course.
Everything else in the room was plain, otherwise. There was my brown bedspread, the dresser, nightstand, and desk, all organized and impersonal. Abe’s cage was on a tall table in the corner, which I always kept clean so it wouldn’t smell up my room.
The old floorboards creaking as I walked to my desk, I plopped down in the chair and boosted my laptop. I shifted restlessly as it came to life. There might be an e-mail. There might be something…
There was nothing. As soon as my slow internet popped up and I scrambled to open my e-mail, I was disappointed to see the empty inbox. As always.
“Where the hell is the last cookie?” one of the boys bellowed from downstairs. Staring dismally at the screen, I listened to Millie start in on them, probably forcing them to go out and do yard work or something in compensation for disrupting her kitchen. I moved the mouse slowly, clicking on the SAVED MESSAGES tab, opening the last one from Chris.
Lily,
Stop e-mailing me. Stop calling me. Stop trying to talk to me in school. I don’t want to see or talk to you anymore, got it? It’s over. You made the choice. You’re the one that ruined everything. So stop crying whenever I come around, and please just try to suck it up. There’s nothing between us anymore.
Chris
That was it. No goodbye, no kind word, just hard and cold. This message that I got from Chris about two weeks ago was completely different from the guy I’d dated.
Ignoring the fact that he didn’t want me to e-mail him, I had replied. I got nothing back, of course. When Chris said something, no matter how quietly or unemotionally, he always meant it. I knew that. Which was why I’d been trying so hard to convince him otherwise. But eventually I did give up—groveling wasn’t my thing. I hated people that groveled. It was my fault that we’d ended. Chris was right about that.
I kept replaying that night over and over in my head, kept torturing myself with it. It shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have let it happen. But John just had a way about him, had this sort of irresistible force that compelled me no matter how cruel or weird he was. No one seemed to feel the same way, though. No one else understood, least of all Chris.
“Lily!” Millie’s voice drifted up the stairs. “Come down and do your chores!”
I sat for one moment more, trying not to drown in self-pity. Then I shut my laptop without bothering to close the window and went back downstairs.
* * *
Natalie Hanson had been my best friend since the first grade. Ever since I’d drawn an elephant on the teacher’s desk with red crayon and gotten yelled for it, and she’d intervened by adding her own blue lines to the drawing. We both had to stay in for recess.
She’d been with me through Mom’s abandonment and Dad’s suicide, supported me through the move to the foster home and the adjustment. I’d never left Thorndale in my life, so everyone knew what had happened to me and Greg, all the kids in my class knew who I was. Natalie was the only one who didn’t give me The Look, which was partly the reason why she was my best friend.
The Look. It was a tilt of the head, a slant of the eyes that said, Oh, you live in a foster home? Your dad killed himself? I feel sorry for you. So sorry, in fact, that I don’t know what to say or how to act around you. So I can’t be your friend. Sorry.
Okay, maybe The Look wasn’t as specific as that, but it was the gist of it. Pity. Distance. Anxiety. I’d always been Lily Blomquist, the girl whose mom left, whose dad killed himself, whose brother was never around. Living in a small town meant that everyone knew about you and your life even if you didn’t talk about it.
I didn’t know Millie and Corey until I’d moved in around sixth grade, because the two of them barely ever left the farm. I think it was a big part of my staying there. They weren’t among the groups of people who gave me The Look as I walked past, never asked or wanted to talk about it.
And Millie never judged Natalie. There were people who gave her a different sort of look than the one I got. Natalie was what I called a character. She dyed her hair something different each month, and she the only tops she wore were white t-shirts that she wrote on herself. Weird little phrases that were completely random, like Always remember you are unique; just like everyone else. Or, I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not too sure. I had no idea what they really signified… but maybe that was the point. Natalie never had a purpose, really. She wasn’t always fighting for something like Joanna. She had her opinions, stated them sometimes, and tried to live life to the fullest. She was messy, but always organized… if that made sense.
Usually I biked over to her house after school—a farmhouse similar to ours about two miles down the road—but seeing as Greg wanted to have a heart-to-heart and today was the day I had to milk Cow, it wasn’t going to work.
Which meant she would come to me.
She always did. Natalie hated change. When she developed a routine, she was one of those people that hated to break it. We always saw each other every day at 3:45 and hung out until Millie either called Natalie’s house and demanded I come home or kicked Natalie out of ours.
She came up on her four-wheeler, grinning at me when she saw me on the milking stool and my head resting on Cow’s cushy stomach. Her hair was blue this month, and her t-shirt said, If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends? in red marker.
“Why are the idiots weeding the garden?” she asked, smirking over her shoulder at Ron and Quinn, who were scowling at each other every time they straightened from bending over. Greg roared past on the mower, staring down at steering wheel as he moved in uneven rows. He’d taken off his shirt in a defense against the glaring sun, and his skin gleamed with sweat.
“Argued over some food,” I answered.
Natalie was looking at my brother with an odd look on her face. “Oh,” she said after a moment. “Of course.” She turned to smile down at me. “So Andrew asked me out again,” she said, killing the engine and swinging one leg over the four-wheeler seat. She plopped down on the barn floor next to me. Natalie was never afraid of getting dirty.
“And did you actually say yes this time?” I raised my eyebrows.
She sighed, stretching her leg out. “Nah. There’s just nothing there for me. You know how it is.”
I did. Andrew had been after Natalie for three years, ever since she spilled milk on his lap accidentally and, to make up for it, poured some on herself. He was a nice guy, not a jock and not a nerd either, kind of perfect. But Natalie didn’t believe in doing something just because it seemed right. It had to be right. For her, anyway.
Cow made a soft sound like she did every time I finished up, and I picked the full bucket up and lugged it into the barn. Natalie followed me, oddly quiet. She had her thoughtful moments, so I stayed quiet, too.
“So…” she said. I instantly turned. That was the sound she made when she was just starting something.
“What?” I frowned at the hesitant look on her face. I chewed my lip, seeing that. “It’s Chris, isn’t it? What did he say to you? What happened?”
“You’ll just find out tomorrow so I might as well tell you now,” my friend answered. “But don’t get your hopes up, you hear me Lil?”
“What is it?” I insisted, forgetting Cow and leaving her standing in the barn doorway.
She tugged her shirt down in agitation. “I guess Chris and Gina broke up.”
My heart leaped. I gaped at her, wild hope surging through my veins. “They did? When? What was it about? Did you talk to either of them?” I shot the questions at Natalie so quickly she didn’t have a chance to pick one and answer.
“Whoa,” she raised her hands, “I’m just telling you what Allen told me. He heard it from one of Gina’s clones.”
I looked at Greg, who was passing by the barn again, not really seeing him. Did this mean that Chris missed me? Might come back to me, even forgive me?
I would just have to wait until dinner with the Schaffers. Dark couldn’t come soon enough.
I'm intrested to see where you're going with this. It flows smoothly and keeps me intrested the whole way through. I don't think it was too short, but I'm kinda anxious for the next part! PM me when you write more.